The present invention relates to an electronic keyboard percussion instrument which produces a tone having a pitch corresponding to a plate (a bar) struck by a small hammer such as a mallet as in a xylophone.
Xylophones, marimbas and vibraphones are known as acoustic keyboard percussion instruments. These keyboard percussion instruments have an arrangement consisting of a series of wooden or metal bars (plates) tuned chromatically with resonant frequencies corresponding to notes. The bars produce sounds upon selectively striking with a small hammer such as a mallet to produce a melody or the like.
Regarding electronic percussion instruments, conventional ones are exemplified by (a) a vibration sensor is mounted in a drum, and a detection output from the vibration sensor is amplified and produced at a loudspeaker and (b) a piezoelectric element is incorporated in a hammer (e.g., a stick or mallet) portion excluding a holding portion, and a voltage-controlled oscillator, a voltage-controlled filter or the like is driven in response to an output from the piezoelectric element to produce a musical tone signal (e.g., Japanese Utility Model Publication No. 59-5912).
In the acoustic keyboard percussion instruments described above, the shapes and dimensions of a series of bars are determined to produce desired sounds with predetermined pitches. In order to allow free vibrations of the bars, a proper gap is formed between each two adjacent bars. When the tone range of such musical instruments is widened, they are bulky and heavy. Therefore, playing and handling thereof is not easy.
Musical tone elements such as pitch, tone color, and volume are delicately changed according to striking forces and positions. Skilled striking techniques are required to control such delicate changes.
Furthermore, since the acoustic keyboard percussion instruments have particular tone colors, a player cannot enjoy different tone colors by playing a single acoustic keyboard percussion instrument.
The electronic percussion instruments (a) and (b) cannot selectively produce musical tones corresponding to the plurality of note names, unlike the acoustic keyboard percussion instruments, and melodies cannot be produced.